Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky - The Chalupacabra

The boys revisit the joys of Hong Kong cinema with the spectacularly gory, spectacularly ridiculous, spectacularly beefy opus that is Riki-Oh, the story of one man's passionate desire to bring about prison reforms by punching through walls and making peoples' skulls explode. Put your face in this bad English dubbing and breathe deep, brother.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Ahora agrapando.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Ah, dude, Craig was on the money this time. He he flinched a little last time.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Yeah, he was. And he did it in Spanish this time, too.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

He did it in Spanish. That was no one could hear it, but that was wonderful. And I actually I actually really liked how he pronounced it there. Multicultural Craig. Multicultural Craig. Well, Craig's probably got uh worldly ambitions. He's he's a voice recording software, so he probably like is used the world over. Like Craig probably Cra Craig probably has a pretty multicultural friend group.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah, he's probably heard some whack shit. He's probably not just from us.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Oh yeah, he's heard some crazy shit. Like he hangs out on all the conspiracy blogs and with the conspiracy pods. I'm sorry, we're I'm getting my media confused again.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yeah, he's like on a first name basis with Alex Jones. Well, I guess everybody's on a first name basis with Craig, kind of.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Yeah, kind of. Like cra well, that's the other thing is like we're we're putting a lot of trust in what appears to be a beaver bear thing that will only give us his first name.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah, he looks like a yeah, a m uh what's it, a mononym? A mammal with a mononym. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

What's what's going on here? Like we we don't even have a mammal with that's we don't even know that that's a mammal.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

That could be a rodent. He's he's he's furred. Yeah, that's not his government ID, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Come to think of it, Craig might be a fake name.

unknown 1:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

I've never met anyone named Craig in real life, and I only know of one celebrity named Craig.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Which one is that? Craig T. Nelson. Okay, yeah, yeah. I knew he had one of those coach.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah, which was also uh the sitcom that gave birth to the guy who vo well not gave birth, but you know, launched the career of the guy who voices Patrick Starr on SpongeBob. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Okay. I do know a guy named Craig. I hope you're doing well, Craig.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Oh, alright.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Well, you know, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

I'm just saying, I'm just saying. I at this point I am not convinced that Craig is a real name. It sounds like one of those fucking uh fake names we like like uh Keith. You think Keith are fake too, okay. I've never met a Keith. I've never met a Keith.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

I've also never I've met several Keith. I have met Keith.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

You've met several you you went to Princeton, though, and like I feel like you guys might use pseudonyms out there.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Yeah, but I I knew these Keith's from like exterior sources.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

So I did you did you was this a conglomeration of Keith's or are these individual Keith's?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

We don't talk about the society.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

The Society and the Council of Keith.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah. Which I guess also implies that my name is Keith, but I guess so.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Like like like they're gonna be pissed off to find out you're not actually a Keith.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Right, it's kind of like an eyes wide shut situation.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Oh yeah, like you. Everyone's Keith.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Yeah. I don't know. Like, hypothetical, we're both in an eyes wide shut scenario. We like we just had the wrong fucking address for the costume party.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Like, how long do we survive before they like put us at the middle of some horrific ritual?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Uh if it's a fucking eyes wide shut party, then like they absolutely know everyone who's on the guest list.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Like Yeah, but we're wearing the masks.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Oh, so like we're in costume. So like that we've somehow made it in. Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

We accidentally we were like, hey, wouldn't it be fun if we wore eyes wide shut costumes to this totally unrelated Halloween party, and then we'd go to the wrong building.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

I think we'd have to bullshit a lot and like certainly speak in poetry and like sort of like sort of like very lyricize our our yeah, yeah. Like, well, I mean you've written essays, you know how to kind of like bullshit to pad for time by using very big words like that don't that like absolutely serve no purpose than to just fucking beef up that page count. Like yeah, that like that, except like less academic, more esoteric, you know?

SPEAKER_00 4:02

So we're doing the conversational version of like bumping up the font size and all your punctuations.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yes. Picture a freestyle rapper from Yale.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

And like you're you're on the right track. Like you gotta be a little erudite about it, but you gotta be mostly improv because I'm kind of curious about that guy.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Uh about the freestyle rapper from Freestyle. Freestyle rapper from yeah, what's he doing in this society? I mean, I guess skull and bones.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah, it's fucking like it you you went to an Ivy League, like you know how it is. Yeah, yeah, I do. I went to st I I went to state college and we had we had our own councils, but they were in the woods, and like and like if you if you basically had a 12-pack, you were you were in the council. That was the the price that had to be paid, or a bottle of something like just that that that was the council. The council ended at fucking 3 a.m. and then you everyone had to go home.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Yeah, the fucking uh the elder of the council sat on a throne of PBRs.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Yeah, yeah, and we we decided our rank via beer pong.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah, I'm pretty bad at beer pong. Like once in a while I'll get a clutch hit, but like it's by accident, it's not because of skill.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Bear with me. What about an eyes wide shut situation where it's just a fucking sleazy ass like bro party and oh they're doing keg stands, but they're in the robes? And like they're fucking like doing beer bongs through like special holes.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah, yeah. That's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Fucking uh the Sahara soundtrack is playing. It's like you don't know what we can find. We haven't even started.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

One of the guys like stumbling by in the background, like lifting up his mask and just chundering all over the carpet.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

And then like passes out in it and just gets up, and his mask is just like it's just a bird mask dripping puke off the god. Um, alright, you ready to start? Yep. Did you think the Shawshank Redemption could use about 80% less musing on the nature of justice and 220% more of making dudes' heads explode by punching them? If so, Hong Kong has your answer. Welcome to the Slop Culture Podcast. Today we're talking about Ricky O, the story of Ricky. It's Slop Culture, everybody. Yes, welcome to Slop Culture, the happy hour podcast where we strive to see the beauty and stupidity. I am your host, Sam Sykes, and with me, as always, a man who was ejected from his local county fair cooking competition after presenting his corn based dish titled 9-11 was an inside cob. It's Will Palmer, everybody. Fuck that's pretty good, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:01

That's expert level.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Because I'm picturing like two twin towers made of corn and like little mashed potatoes and like yeah, mashed potatoes for building five.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Like the pen the wing of the pentagon where all the budgets are kept. Maybe that's in like graham crackers and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Uh what, like jet fuel doesn't melt steamed greens. Right. And I like put it down in like a buffet. Like, looks like we got a coalition of the willing here. Dick Cheney's ghost shows up and daps me up briefly.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

So, you partake of a dread contract. Like now his soul is inside you.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Yeah, we're two souls in the same body. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

He doesn't take control, he's just in there with you. That's an interesting time in American life.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

An inside cob is fuck, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

I'm picturing kind of like a conspiracy themed cook-off, like like fucking uh chili va chili contra Iran con carnet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

I'm trying to think of something with cryptids, but it's not coming to me.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Um fucking cryptids, chupacabra, churocabra.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Chupacabra, and it's just like chips and chupacabra. Oh, that means a chalupacabra? Chalupa cabra! Chalupa cabra is a killer. I feel like a chalupa cabra is just an overweight chupacabra. Yeah, hangs out outside Taco Bell and asks you to buy him stuff.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah, he does like a lot of sports gambling on his phone. Like enough that he's gotten in some trouble. Yeah, he's he's fucking he's got dreams of being a streamer, but he's just so goddamn unlikable. Yeah, he's unlikable, but not even in like a hate-watching way.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

It's just yeah, no, no, he's not like he's not like the Paul brothers where he's like outrageous, he's just like a real fucking drag. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

This guy would not get in the ring with like Mike Tyson or anybody else.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Yeah, he's not gonna do anything physical. He's just gonna like talk shit at passers by and like he's one of the he wants to be like an IRL troll streamer, but he's like such a fucking coward. He just like mutters stuff at people as they walk by while he's like eating a fucking chalupa like nice, nice hat. Yeah. Jerk. That's that's what the chalupa cabra is. Yeah. Um fucking uh I I love this though, like fucking food cryptids. I I'm not ready to let go yet.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Um uh the root the moon landing was baked.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

The moon landing was baked.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Oh, that's wonderful. I'm picturing like a fucking like a fucking moon cake with like a crisp, exactly. With like a crispy, like maybe a cheesecake underneath, because it's um it's the moon, and like maybe it's got like kind of a candy shell and like a little a little fake near alarm straw and like a director off to the exactly. It's perfectly flat. Rolling cameras, yeah, that'd be fucking great. With like a little fan to be the wind for the flag. Sure. Yeah. Wind in space. I'm still on cryptids and I'm thinking like Sasperillus watch. That's not that that seems a little esoteric. Um I mean, so are cryptids, right? Yeah, no, that's true. Truth is, when you get right, oh hang on. Uh when you get down to it, there's like and I'm sorry to offend the cryptid loving community, but there's only like three good cryptids.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Okay. And like all the rest, well, no, like more than three, but like Wendigo's Wendigo, but then you like Chupacabre, uh Bloch Ness Monster, Sasquatch.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Bloch Ness Monster, Mothman, Sasquatch. Um, but then like all the shit, all the cryptids I like. Vampires aren't cryptids. Yeah, no, they're just creatures. Come on, come on.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think of other like like local cryptids. And there's some fucking things.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

There's the Ohio frog man, which I'm fascinated by, and it's literally just a frog that a giant frog walking on two legs, and I'm like, yes. It's like man-sized, or is he just yeah, yeah, it's it's it's man-sized. It's like it's like man-sized, and it's just like a but he's a frog, like he's biologically a frog, he's just walking on two legs. Imagine how fucked up that would be. Like, worse than seeing a fucking dinosaur. Like the dinosaur makes sense somehow in a lake, like the Loch Ness monster. But you see just a frog man in Ohio, just walking, and you're like, yeah, that's that's Ohio, man.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Does he be hopping around? Does he behave like a frog or like a like a man? Because it's a frog man, but which which side dominates?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Well, he's like he's like the worst of both worlds. He's he's got all the strength of a frog and all all the hate of a man.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

He has like balls but no dick.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

He's got balls but no dick. That's why he's so pissed off all the time. Except he just runs a political podcast. And people can't stand him. Like, like he he's the only confirmed cryptid that's like out in public, and everyone hates him so much.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah, the cryptid community is like kind of mad. They won't say it, but they're kind of mad that he's the guy. Yeah, like this. They would have preferred it was almost any but like the Mississippi devil, isn't that one?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Uh Olekokembi, uh fucking from the Congo. Yeah. Which is alleged to be a large uh uh dinosaur. Oh. Which that's cool. Yeah, I I might I might be mispronouncing the name, but it's it's supposed to be a dinosaur that roams uh jungles in Africa. Okay. And is and is and has not been seen or caught yet. Uh are we counting like the Baba Yaga? I think the Baba Yaga is folk reasonable. Chicken leg house.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yeah, that's folk reasonable. Like Baba Yaga, like to be a cryptid, it kind of has to be inexplicable, you know. Like Baba Yaga has a fucking has a fucking setup. She has she has she has a hustle. She has a hustle. Like the frog man, the frogman does not have a hustle. Mothman. No hustle. No hustle. Like it's just they are they are just out there doing what they do, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

You heard it here first, folks. The Mothman is not on the Sigma grind set. The Mothman is a beta cryptid.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

And we're here on the Alpha Crypt. You mean to be a frog man, not a mothman. That's why you got that's why you gotta take frog power pills.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Do not mix with red tech or a fatal reaction. Will it be?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Do not mix with red tech, the boner pill that makes you red.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

I thought it was like a like a creatine thing. It's a boner pill. We changed it. We changed the ingredients on the slide.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

We changed the ingredients. Now it does both. It delivers a 50 milligram shot of creatine straight to your penis.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

It's got rhino bones in it.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

It has rhino bones in it. Cursed ones. Harvested from one of them creepy graveyards. They're always gatocking about it.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

A rhinoceros graveyard?

SPEAKER_01 14:37

A rhinoceros graveyard. Not quite as impressive as an elephant graveyard, but still. You're still gonna see horns and ribs, and that's the cool part.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

It's pretty metal. And we put it in boner pills.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Then we made it into boner pills, and we mixed it with the DNA of frogs. Now it's a Jurassic Park situation where you have a Dilophosaurus dick. We spit in Tarwin's face and pass the savings on to you. Even for us, like I gotta say, this is a pretty stupid podcast, but like every so often, like, we fucking we're on one layer of of the inferno, and then like every so often we just pick up a spade and start getting to work on digging to the next.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Like I was thinking, like, uh, it's like you know, we do the usual like driving along the highway toward our destination, and one of us grabs the wheel and yanks us off into the minefield, but then somehow we like set off a series of land mines that just kind of bounce us along and then down into like a giant pit that's full of spikes, but then it also has the bottom of a bounce house, and then we get bounced back into the minefield. So in in your in in this scenario, we are taking a road trip through uh pre-war like war cold war Cambodia.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Alright, alright. We'll fuck we'll fucking um sitting in a Jeep. Um I'm severely sunburned because I forgot to like bring that, or maybe I was just being a hard o like, no, I don't need fucking sunscreen, pussy, and then I'm just like roasting.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

We thought we were only going out to like go down to the go to the chilies down the street. Right. The Cambodian chilies.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, now there's like an international coalition coming after us.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Yes, we somehow made a UN issue out of it. It's like the hangover, but with like much, much higher stakes.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

It's the only time the entire Security Council has just been like, all right, yeah, fuck these guys.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, fuck these guys in particular. We'll talk about them. We'll we'll go back to warring afterwards, but fuck everyone. Put a stop to this shit.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Meanwhile, we're just bouncing still through the night. Small parts of our Jeep come flying off and just bounce, bang, bounce.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

There's like a celebrity cameo who's like showed up as the hitchhiker. And it's Sir Ian McKellen. I say, I love practical effects. I love practical effects. This is why I became an actor.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

And he's crying happy tears this time.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

He's crying happy tears and like he's impaled on a spike.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah, just like a bunch of rusting rebar that rubs out of his back.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

And he's like, I think this is the start of something beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

And he just vomits up like a ton of buttons all the time.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

And the award for best actor goes to Ian McKellen in the role of himself puking and impaled on rebar.

unknown 17:47

Woo!

SPEAKER_00 17:48

And it goes immediately to the in-memorium. They don't even have to change the footage.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

I feel like that's I feel like that's going to be the jackass guys one of these days.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Well, no, they quit for good now, which is a shame. Which is a shame.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

I mean, they put their bodies through a lot, man. RIP Ryan Dunn, too. Um, you know, like fuck, man. Early 2000s, people were doing crazy, like medieval, dangerous shit to their own body. I mean, they would have gotten like burned at the stake for witchcraft for some of those things. It was it was a different world back in like the medieval era, right? Imagine Steve O and like at court in like uh Inquisition era Spain. Right, or just like I'm Johnny Knoxville, and this is getting my legs hobbled in the name of an interrogation.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

I'm Johnny Knoxville, and this is the Iron Maiden until I renounce my Jewish faith.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

I'm Stevo, and this is Pantsing Torquemata. He runs up to Torquemata and yags his trousers down.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

We we can't go down this line because fucking all talk about the Spanish Inquisition eventually ends at the musical number that they did in History of the World Part One, which is excellent. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Uh but also we're we're here to talk about Ricky O, the story of Ricky a hot movie example of uh senseless, horrifying violence.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah, yeah. Uh but before we do, before we do, we we typically banter, and I actually I'm a little reluctant to speak on this, but uh it caught my eye. Okay the other day as I was driving home from the gym, I happened to see a Taco Bell out of business, shuddered, for lease sign in in the fucking uh in the fucking window. Yeah, yeah, haunted, haunted, you know, like you you know it's like a still and silent hell in there.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

It's kind of like a thousand yard stair.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah, it's it's a building giving you the thousand yard stare. And I I don't know, I thought I I was a little moved by that. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Let's examine this feeling a little bit. Like the thousand yard stare, is that because of what it went through previously or because it misses what it was?

SPEAKER_01 20:15

I think because it misses what it was, because the Taco Bell is like a specific role in the in the fat in the restaurant evolutionary chain, you know?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Like kind of like uh Homo erectus.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's a it's a it's a transitive fast food. Like it's not quite good and it's not quite bad, it's just it's something, you know.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

How did that uh end up for you? I remember a couple uh episodes ago you mentioned that you'd uh had uh some Taco Bell, and then I believe we talked about Diablo sauce, but I saw it through.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

I saw it through. Uh I don't think I will have Taco Bell for quite some time. Like it's always everyone's got like that fucking uh that kind of food where they're like every fucking like four months, or like I could really go for that, and then they have it, and like that was horrible. And then like four months later. It's like we should have Taco Bell again.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Um yeah, no, have you ever like um ordered stuff from like a like for me I I really should learn a lesson from this, and I just keep not learning it. Um I have this like Indian place that I order from. And when I was like very drunk one time, I uh put in the comment, um, just fuck me up, fam, XOXO, when it came to like the spiciness. I said like other and then type that in. And they did.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Good.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

They did. Yes, and so now I just ask like uh very spicy, please, thank you. And it's delicious every time, and I it fucks me up every time, just like I asked for.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

You're you're you're blessed to have a good Indian place. I feel like not everyone gets that privilege. There's an Indian place near me that I I'm it that we ate at once, and it it was nothing special. I mean, I'm not gonna badmouth it or name it, but it was just I don't recall being wowed by it. And I I don't recall the last time I was wowed. Well, no, I was in London and I was eating at a place called the Punjab. Okay. And it was like heartbreakingly good curry. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Like you know you're having like a legendary food experience.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like to you, it's a legendary food experience. And to like the dude in the back making it, it's like fucking Tuesday, you know? Like this this is just something he's done for a long time. But it's uh it was one of those like very simple recipes, like nothing fancy, no excellent presentation. It's just like fucking here's your curry, and it tastes amazing. And it did. And I fucking loved it, and I wish I could have it right now, but I can't.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Yeah, another place that I uh that I like like going to, it's got an animatronic elephant uh that owns. Yeah, there's like a little minecart chase you can do that's kind of like uh what's it called? Temple of Doom.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Ah the the least the least loved well no actually the one of the least loved indies.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Yeah, I mean there were a couple like fan fiction films made afterward by like Disney or somebody, I think, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Yeah, no, that that we're we're we're just we're we're just not gonna talk. One day they're gonna recast Indiana Jonah as Chris Pratt, and everyone's gonna hate it, and everyone's gonna be but everyone's gonna say, like, you know what, we deserve this.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

And like I'll come back from the dead. Give that little twink a taste of the bar what I gave Al Capone.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

I'll tell that little schoolboy I'll give that little schoolboy a taste of what we did in Alcatraz back in the rock.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Oh show that little Kennedy fucker, watch what?

SPEAKER_01 23:46

I'll show that little Kennedy fucker. I bet you didn't know that Chris Pratt was the bastard son of John F. Kennedy. Well, it's true.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

I was Well no, I mean and I mean Kennedy fucker in like a hyphenated set. Isn't his uh his wife like a distant Kennedy? I believe so. Uh yes. So I don't mean it insultingly, it's just uh his commenting on his love life because I'm about to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

I know a Catholic fucker when I see one. I I how I honed that sense to a razor's edge during the war. I refuse to clarify which war. There were so many they bled one into the other. And somewhere in all of that, I shot the rock with Nick Cage. Do you remember that one? Yeah, I do. I liked it.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Cuts to Nick Cage. That was uh the most stressful experience of my life.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

That was the uh most every night he just kept screaming and screaming, and I would have left, but he insisted I stay in the same room.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Right, and then uh well, like cuts to like Michael Bay, um, and he's just like, Yeah, you know, and like the crazy thing is like Sean wasn't asleep when he was screaming. He was just he's just sitting staring at a wall. He doesn't sleep, or he's asleep all the time with his eyes open. I can't tell. If anything, his eyes are wider. It's like an abandoned Taco Bell. He had a stare like an abandoned Taco Bell.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Oh fuck.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

It had served its last chalupa.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

He had a stare like an abandoned Taco Bell that had just spit out its last chalupa. No Diablo sauce.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

That's uh like what do we call that? Deep fried noir.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Deep fried noir. I do Taco Noir. Taco Noir. Taco Noir. Taco Bell after dark.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Well, that's the Taco Bell Cantina, but Taco Noir is like super after dark.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Taco Noir is like the 1950s Taco Bell.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Yeah, like it's filled with like a haze of smoke from indeterminate sources.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Yeah, it's just like a bunch of fucking like gum shoes and dames like fucking smoking cigarettes and gobbling down seven-layer cheesy burritos. I'm looking for uh Doritos locos. Like, we don't have that here. How about just Doritos then in the back? Oh yeah, it's like a speakeasy type vibe.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

You get the real freaky shit in the background.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Yeah, you go back there and it's a fucking taco bell, eyes wide shut. Fucking full circle. I'm choosing to close the circle there.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Yeah, and that were boroughs and taco bells and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yes, it's wonderful when a fucking conversation forms a complete circle. And also, I would love to talk to you about today's movie Ricky O, the story of Ricky, 1991, fucking uh starring Lewis Fan, uh, which we are he there are different pronunciations to his name. We are choosing to use the Hong Kong style that he was presented in. Also, for those in the know, Lewis Fan also appeared in Ip Man 1 and 2, starring Donnie Yen. So like we've got some good fucking uh some lineage here, you know? Like, like this this Ricky O is kind of uh kind of a legendary movie. I remember it being kind of circulated on the early internet as something like completely shocking that like you only a few people had knowledge of, you know? Like it was kind of the same with uh blood sport, but Ricky O was like genuinely fucked up.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Like there was like like blu blood, like blood sport, the movie is like sport and a little blood. This is the opposite of that.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Yeah, this yeah, this is this is blood really any sports at all. Ricky O is what Tipper Gore thought blood sport was.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

And then, yeah, I mean to be fair, there are some very Mortal Kombat-esque elements in this.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Yeah, yeah. We are actually having a rare moment where we get to uh where we get to sort of study another movie that influenced Mortal Kombat, which became an American institution. And that's I think that's neat. Like there's always an element behind all the stupid shit we talk about. There's always an element of pop culture anthropology, and this is that. And today we're gonna kind of look at an important relic of that era.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

We're dedicating this episode to Tipper Gore.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

To Tipper Gore. We know you're listening. Longtime friend of the podcast. Here's to you. Love your work. Big fan, big fan.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Um, the story of Ricky.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Uh and I believe I'm the one that recommended this. You are so as is tradition, I would like to invite you uh to do the two-minute drill. And forgive me for a moment while I go grab my phone because I left it to charge. I'll be right back.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Yep. Yeah, this one's gonna be tricky. Um I watched the film last night. Uh Sam watched it earlier today, but um, I mean, there's just not a lot of plot there. That's not to say that there's no meat on the bone, so to speak. It's just I mean, you'll see. We'll see that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

All right. I have two minutes on the clock. Are you prepared, if you dare, to summarize Ricky O, the story of Ricky.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Yeah, I mean, no, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Here we go. Two minutes on the clock and go.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Ricky O follows uh the story of Ricky. Um who is Ricky's a guy, right? You don't know much about Ricky other than he's a guy, right? The movie kind of it slow builds, um, in the sense that he murdered like dozens of people before you find out anything really about him. Ricky goes to prison. He's got enough bullets in him to set off the metal detector. He's shredded. Great cheese on these abs. Um he has very few emotions, um, but all the emotions he expresses are cool. And he's like generally like a cool guy, although he like barely speaks, but you know, he's made he makes friends like an older guy in like the prison. The older guy's like model train gets broken by these like thugs, and then boom, Ricky trips the main thug guy into a board covered in fucking spikes, and there's blood fucking everywhere. And then they bully the old guy into hanging himself. But like, get this, Ricky had made the old guy like a new model train thing, and this isn't like tracula-level model trains, this is like you know, like a little wood thing. But Ricky now has beef with these guys, massacres them. And then the I guess the assistant warden, guy with the hook hand, um, is like, oh, like fuck you, Ricky. And this process just repeats at increasing levels, with Ricky befriending someone, them getting horrifically murdered, Ricky avenging their murder in gratuitously violent fashion, and he's fighting his way through like the four fucking four bullshitters or something, who are like the video game bosses of each wing of the prison. Um, and uh he massacres them, the prison warden finally shows up, and he's even worse than the hook-handed guy. Um, and I mean that's a shocking twist, right? Um ultimately, uh ultimately, Ricky kills all four of the fucking four bullshitters, and hook-handed guy, I forget how he dies, but he fucking dies. Then in one of the wildest moments of the movie, um well, there's a couple, but to focus on one, the warden turns into the incredible hulk, and Ricky feeds him to a giant meat grinder. Also, his girlfriend dies throwing herself off a roof, but it's a mannequin. Obviously.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

She didn't actually do I mean Hong Kong cinema is really into those like real-life stunts, but it was it was it was 1991, and fucking everyone could not get enough of throwing a mannequin off a building.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Yeah. John Wu is looking at Chow Yun Fat, like, see, why couldn't you do that? And Chow Yun Fat is like, dude, I uh I have had enough to hear with you.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

I have had enough of this. So a few things that I think should be noted. This movie was made in 1991, and it it's set in 2001. Uh, and it says by the year 2001, prisons have become completely privatized, and you just go to prison for almost any bullshit reason at all. And there you're held as basically slave labor. And I was gonna say actually that that ended up being true. Uh they they did predict that, and it took a little longer than 2001, but that's that's basically how it works, you know?

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yeah, I mean the US prison system today is notoriously dominated by the Hulk and people. I should have also focused a little bit more, I think, during my recap on the absolutely insane ways that Ricky kills people, but I thought we want to unpack that on its that's its own separate category of conversation. I couldn't have done it justice in the world.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Ricky O. Uh well the character's name is Ricky Ho. He is played by the by Lewis Fan, uh, and he fucking goes to prison uh for what we find out is killing the drug dealer who got his girlfriend high and made her run off the roof, fucking like.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Why make her if she I mean because she woke up and she was high and then just immediately gets up, sprints up the stairs, and just right off the top of the building, and then it cuts to like just plummeting just face down onto the fucking space.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

But she goes, she goes out fucking wily coyote style, and like that's kind of funny. That's kind of funny.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Yeah, the way it's filmed is just it's so clear that it's a mannequin, and that contrast with like you know, this tragic backstory and this like fucked up scenario, and like it's so clear that they just threw a fuck it's not even a good mannequin.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

This movie fucking loves its mannequins. This movie gets a lot of great use out of mannequins.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Yeah, mannequins and fake blood.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

The only other thing is once Ricky Ho arrives at the fucking uh prison, they basically break it down how the prison is separated into four wings, and each wing has a leader, and above the leaders is the assistant warden, and above the assistant warden is the warden, and it's like a video game. Yeah, yeah, it's just literally like telling you what's gonna fucking happen. Like I I I I ended up really liking that. There I ended up really liking this movie a lot more than I thought I would, you know?

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Yeah, going into this movie, I think we had like relatively similar levels of familiarity with it, and that we'd seen like memes and like clips of some of the crazier scenes. But I never seen a complete piece in one sitting. It's it's an experience.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Yeah, yeah. This movie is kind of uh kind of urban tales because I I guarantee you uh you've seen a gif of it somewhere of like a dude crushing a guy's head or a dude like trying to strangle another dude with his intestines.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Like a dude like tying a tourniquet using is that his arm tendons or his own veins?

SPEAKER_01 35:00

I was I couldn't I couldn't tell, but like uh uh you that was this movie. It is a fucking very violent, extremely gory, extremely overwrought uh fucking Hong Kong movie, fucking extravaganza. I fucking loved it.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Yeah, it's like the crew had like a certain amount of like like a lot of mannequins and even more fake blood and like a decent amount of raw meat, and like they were all gonna die unless they found something to do with it.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Yeah, like like like this it it borders fetishistic, uh, but it's but it's handled so over the top.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Like, this is not realistic. I mean, I don't think it's realistic, or I've never seen like a man punch through another man's entire torso.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

I would say this is the sort of mortal combat kind of violence where like the circumstances surrounding the violence are so goofy that it's kind of hard to take seriously, you know. Like some movies have very visceral violence, you know, like fucking This is not Lone Survivor, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not like the scene in saving private Ryan where you get stabbed, you know. Like that's that's that's a brutal scene. This is more like opera. This is fucking You did say that it was like opera.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

This is this is this is what kept coming up for me is this movie is about basically Ricky O befriending various people in prison and them getting killed as a result of being close to him, and then he goes and finds the person who kills them, and Ricky kills them, and like in their death throes, they tend to like him, which is really weird.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yeah, these are people who have like tortured him, like murdered his friends. He is like disemboweling them, dismembering them, punching off like their entire lower jaw. Yeah, but then the last words are almost always some variation of like you're a pretty chill guy, Ricky. Yeah, you're a you're a good guy, Ricky. Like like he makes crushed with a pneumatic ceiling or something.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

He's a very interesting character, and I think that's where we should begin. I really like Ricky as a character, and that sounds insane because Ricky is a bit of a sociopath.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Like, like, and I feel like I'm being very generous saying a bit.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Right. He's he's an odd bird.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

He uh like he he basically shows up and he fucking has five bullets lodged in his chest, and they ask him, why didn't you let a doctor take that out? And he said they're souvenirs. And like it kind of just maintains that beat the whole time. The dude fucking drips aura. He's fucking he's fucking rancid with aura.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

He is the baddest motherfucker in that hemisphere, and he's aware of it.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Yeah, yeah, and like he does he's completely aware of it. Like he kills people in a single punch, he's literally one punch man, and like he's just fucking a monster. Like he never has any hesitation. Well, no, he does have some hesitation in killing people, but like you would think a guy with that much power could like kill them painlessly or something, but no, he fucking like explodes their fucking heads and guts.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Like he fucking explodes people by punching them. It's horrifying.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

And they never really cover like exactly how he got this. Like, they roughly cover, you know, like here's how he learned to punch stuff, but not like here's how he learned to like punch through a man.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Yeah, he has he has a he has a loose backstory where basically his uncle meets him and he says, You've always had freakish strength. Do you want me to teach you kung fu? And he says, Yeah. And then he's about and says, Now you're a killing machine, Ricky. And then he's like, Okay, and like literally, no real discussion about like what he plans to do with that power, no, like, well, you know, Ricky, this is a great response. It's just like, hey, you want to learn how to kill people with a single punch? I sure do. Great, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

That'd be like if Uncle Ben was like teaching Peter it like uh loopholes in federal gun legislation.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Yeah, like what if Uncle Ben just fucking gave Peter an AK and that's Spider-Man becomes the punisher? Except this is the drunk punisher. Yeah. It's like fucking MJ. Drunk Spider-Man is also a funny idea. But I've I've made my feelings known on how I what I think about Spider-Man puking. I think it's incredibly funny. Yeah, and disgusting. And disgusting.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Something very similar to a lot of the absolute carnage that's reeked upon screen during the. I hyped it, I overhyped it up to you, or do you think I adequately hyped it? I told Sam he was not prepared.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

I I think you adequately hyped it because I wrote in my show notes, like, at my very last show notes, uh, was like, okay, I'm an hour and fucking uh and fucking 28 minutes in in a fucking hour 31 minute runtime. I think I'm finally desensitized to the vibe.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Like, it was just so fucking goofy, like, like, but it it remained so fucking high intensity because these were not like your typical tough guys. They Ricky O like has numerous mental breakdowns and like numerous emotional issues, and like he yearns for a lost love. I was absolutely stunned at how much emotion they put into a guy that again makes people explode by punching them. He does this multiple times.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Another thing is like um like Ricky, despite, you know, we we have said that he does do all these great feats of like dispatching enemies, but he also gets fucked up in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

And yet he heals very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Yeah, like they put like a bunch of razor blades in his mouth and start punching him in the face, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Yeah, they put razor blades, they they fucking shoot needles through his arms like fucking giant-sized needles.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Yeah, they fucking papel him on a bunch of rebar like Ian McKellen.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Yeah, they stab him, they give him the they put him in the the McKellen maiden, the iron McKellen, the Iron McKellen.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

Iron McKellen. Hell yes.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Uh they fucking bury him alive for a week and make him breathe through like a slash his arm open and he's ble and it it numbs his arm, and then he fucking cinches his fucking muscle tendons together, or possibly a vein.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

So it's so that was the most uncomfortable part for me to watch for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

But then he can use his fucking arm. Like this is this this is a looney tunes episode. Like, in many ways, this is a fucking Looney Tunes episode.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

It literally does sprint through the prison's exterior wall at the end.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Like, like fucking uh if Bugs Bunny shattered his bone and then like instantly healed it by like tying a knot in it. Yeah, that's the sort of shit you would find in Ricky O, the story of Ricky. Like, it's goofy, but it's like totally it's a it's a total aesthetic choice. Like this movie goes a hundred and this is what I mean by saying it's opera. It's like this movie is not meant to be deciphered or like uh puzzled out, it's meant to be absorbed, it's meant to be tells you what the fuck the themes are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like which I gotta say, it's it's really funny because Ricky constantly takes offense and says, We're human beings, you can't treat us like this. Like, and he says this like right after he's fucking uppercutted a man's tongue up into his skull.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

Like Yeah, he's holding the two separate spinal columns in in each hand.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

He's like, This is inhuman, this is inhuman, we're people. Jesus Christ. Imagine like getting assigned to be like Ricky's roommate, and you just go into the room and right it it'd be I I can't tell if it would be great or if it would suck because Ricky does fucking rule. Like he's he's nice to everyone who does not try to kill him.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

And like Yeah, he's actually like quite thoughtful.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Yeah, and he's constantly looking out for everyone else. Like he's and like he's carving shit and sharing his hobbies. Like he loves playing the flute.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Isn't that kind of horrifying though? Like you go in there and like all you know about this guy is two things. One, that he has an insane body count and these like freakish like martial arts powers. Two, he's sitting in front of you like very carefully whittling a toy train.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

See, I kind of I absolutely love the trope of like the the soft spoken uh warrior, you know, like the the the great warrior who is just totally unassuming.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Kind of a death stalker vibe.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I also love the trope even more of the soft spoken psychopath. Like the person who is soft spoken because if they raise like a single octave, they're gonna go fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

Like a Dennis Reynolds kind of thing?

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they can't like they they they have to stay at zero because they only know zero and a hundred, and when They go a hundred, they fucking make people explode by punching them in the face. Which happens numerous times. And in fact, at one point, he fucking knocks off only the upper half of one guy's head.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Yeah, there are like the things they do to human bodies, like especially like heads, I noticed. They cut off like Alan's fucking like the lower half of his face.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

Yeah, yeah, they skin him alive except for like the top two inches of his head. That's fucked up.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Yeah. And wasn't the guy who played it was here Alan, or I think it's the guy who played Andrew. Um yeah, Mad Dog from uh Hardboiled, right?

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Yeah, yeah. He gets a fucking saw halfway through his face. And then he gets to the face.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

And he lives, and they crucify him, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Like an asshole. Like fucking insane, but like it becomes art. Like the fucking ultra gore becomes art, you know?

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Yes. It's a conscious decision. Every part of it is deliberate.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Yeah. And the escalation of it, like, it's not just escalation of like by the end when the Hulk gets meat grinder, like, yeah, that's ludicrous. But I think that there's like it just the variety just keeps coming.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Yeah, like like for the record, Will just said when the Hulk gets grinded, because in the last three minutes of the movie, the warden turns into a hulking demonic monster, and it's just it's just not explained how he can.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yeah, he grows like two times in size.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Yeah, yeah, and then and then fucking Ricky kills him by feeding him into a meat grinder. But there's like Will said, at the fucking up till the very end of this movie are they fucking just throwing shit out there, and it's it's absolutely insane.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Yeah, even down to when Ricky just like punches through or runs through like a multi-foot, like thick cement wall of the prison at the very like the last shot of the movie. Like, what the fuck? He could have done that at any time.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

He he can punch through walls, but he cannot leave until it's dramatically appropriate.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Yeah, his destiny has always been.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

Like he hasn't learned what he was put in there to learn yet. Like this movie is very aware that it's a movie, and it leans into that to its credit, I say.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

I say. Oh, 100%. It I think that they did a good job with the budget, and they decided to not focus so much on the sets, which they didn't need to, because it's a fucking prison. And the prison isn't the focus. You know, some prison movies, like the prison is almost a character. This is not that. They were like, okay, we got we got some rooms, and now we're gonna spend everything else on fake blood and guts and like decently kind of human-shaped mannequins and training dummies.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

It's very anti-Jackie Chan in that respect, because like a lot of Jackie Chan movies like use the setting a lot. In this one, the setting does not really it's not really important. It's the characters are what's important and the gore is what's important. Uh it's not about fucking technicality, it's about fucking raw emotion and fucking exploding punches.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Yeah, and just increasingly ludicrous. I mean, to be fair, I think the movie does do a good job of when it comes to characters. Like leveling that up. Like, if they had introduced like the warden and his son at the very beginning, tonally, it wouldn't have been worse, but it would have been, I think, like maybe less effective. Whereas with this, you're you're already settled in, you're enjoying the ride, and then the warden and his son come in, you're like, oh hell yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Oh yeah, like the warden looks like fucking Judge Doom. Like he's fucking wearing a fedora in a fucking cloak and has a spiked cane that he drives into somebody's eye within five minutes of arriving.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

Yeah, and he's got like a pistol that makes people inflate like a balloon and then explode.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Yeah, and like he just explains like this is an experimental ammo. It's like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah, who is experimenting with that? And then his son is just like a like this fat little kid wearing uh like plaid shorts, and I think Nike Dunks. Yeah, bright green. He's got like a lot of buttons, and he's like very sensitive and clearly has like a very ch very childlike personality, and I think he's supposed to be like a young teenager, but he acts like a three-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 48:08

We didn't we didn't get to talk about it in the Meg, but there's a character in the Meg who is this sort of this this chubby Chinese kid who fucking like yells at his mom to let him go play in the ocean. And once he's in there, he's threatened by the Megalodon. Yes, but then the Megalodon is like charging, and this like chubby kid does not move at all. And then the megalodon, like and the megalodon veers off, and this kid just looks over his shoulder and says, like, like fucking that's what I thought, bitch. Like it's fucking like and as he does it, he fucking just takes a slurp on his popsicle. It's the baddest ass thing I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

That kid's got an ego after that.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

That this kid reminded me of that. Like, I I know this was like the spoiled son, he's meant to be detested. I couldn't help but like him.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Like I like that kid.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

Yeah, I thought he was so funny, like he's just fucking like being a complete prick about everything, but like he doesn't he almost doesn't seem to mean it. He seems like one of those asshole friends that you make excuses for. Um but yeah, I just all the characters were very loud and in your face. The assistant warden is one-eyed and one candid, and his false eye contains opium pills.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

That he takes out and fucking slams.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Yeah, and then I think doesn't it also have like glass or something in it that he gives to what's his face to throw in Ricky's eyes?

SPEAKER_01 49:32

Yeah, and Ricky gets takes fucking glass to the eyes, and he starts bleeding fucking stigmata style out of his eyeballs. Yeah. And then he breaks a sewer line and the sewer sprays water into his face, and that heals him. Ricky heals very quickly. Like you're clearly not meant to think about it too much. Like it's no, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

I mean, because he takes some pretty grievous injuries.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

He takes some insane injuries, but it's it's almost like it's it's it's kind of like almost almost like the violence is metaphorical.

unknown 50:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

You know? Like, and this is kind of what I think about when I think of like, you know, in anime where they fucking like shout out their moves and like take a really long time to charge.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

It's the fucking theater. Like, like the the dramatic effect is what the violence is. Is like the violence measures the drama, not there's no announcing their attacks in this one. Yeah, yeah, not the reality of it. You're kind of meant to believe that this is kind of like a metaphor, like a poem. Yeah, you know, you think? I don't think so. I think I'm just making I really think I'm just like this is just like part personal philosophy. Like, this is how I make sense of this shit, you know? Like, uh, sure, yeah. Because but like ultimately it's just this is the price of the admission, you know? Like, that's you get you just this is a show where they fucking explode people. Yeah, it is very much a people exploding type uh Yeah, like it tells you what it is, like within fucking three minutes when they fucking throw an old man into a fucking pipe.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Splitting his face in two.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Yeah, it was that shit is gruesome.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

After he gets a toy train that he carved for his son smashed on his fucking skull.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

Mm-hmm. That's then they get his parole like revoked, like as a prank, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Yeah, and then they fucking hang and then he gets hanged.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

Yeah, then he hangs himself, I think, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Yeah, he hangs himself because his parole gets revoked because a prisoner snitches on him. And then I thought it was kind of cool that the other prisoners go over there to to beat him up because they don't like snitches. Like, mmm. There's some honor, there's some honor there, you know.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

That was nice. Yeah. Yeah, that was that was good of them after after ruining that man's life until it Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

It was nice after after they shoved him into suicide. It was nice for them to say, like, hey man, that was not cool. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

It's like, let's not take any responsibility for this and instead shuffle it off on someone weaker than us.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's kind of how it goes in here.

SPEAKER_00 52:01

Yeah. I mean, yeah. Um, I was just thinking of this, like, what if um did had like a Beyond Scared Straight episode filming in this prison at the same time as like as the plot occurred?

SPEAKER_01 52:13

That actually might scare someone straight. Like I would if they're just watching some dude get fed into a meat grinder and like, oh, like, so you're not gonna smoke pot anymore, will you? No! Yes!

SPEAKER_00 52:26

This is what happens when you smoke pot.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Because this movie does like present uh because opium is is present in this movie, and like the bad guys grow it and sell it, and they're using prison labor to do it. Right. But it is heavily implied that like doing opium is slightly morally worse than like disemboweling a man with your hands. Yeah. Like it presents drug use as very, very bad, and like, don't get me wrong, I'm not endorsing it. But like, I do think exploding a man is probably worse morally than fucking like do it doing opium.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

Yeah, the uh the film has like a shall we say, kind of a laissez-faire stance on manually disemboweling a man with your own.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Yeah, I mean that that's just how it goes in 2001. We were all doing it back then.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Bush era diplomacy.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

Bush-era diplomacy was just George Bush stripping down to the waist and fucking Ricky Owing people.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

Look what happened to Saddam.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

Jesus Christ. That's the story they don't want to tell you. I I think I think in 50 years it it you stand good odds that someone will actually try to present that as what went down in the fucking Iraq war.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

Like anime version of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

Yeah, yeah, where like fucking George Bush goes to a prison run by fucking Saddam, and that's how that happened. We're doing a lot of dipping into 9-11 adjacent stuff today. I'm wondering wondering what we did to end up on that. But please continue.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

One thing I wanted to ask you. Um Power ranking, like your top three kills in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Ooh, um top three. I really liked seeing the assistant warden get fucking dismembered by the uh by the prisoners because he was a prick. He was a complete asshole. Uh, I loved uh how Tarzan went out. Uh holding up the pneumatic ceiling. Holding up the pneumatic ceiling. At some point they try to crush Ricky O with the pneumatic ceiling. Like I said, Looney Tunes, fucking Tom and Jerry shit.

SPEAKER_02 54:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:40

And fucking uh this guy, his opponent, Tarzan, gets up and fucking holds the pneumatic ceiling up. And keep in mind, Ricky has just uppercutted this man's tongue into his fucking skull. Like, I know I said that before, but there's literally no other way to say it. Like, he fucking puts his hand up through the man's lower jaw so it comes out his fucking mouth. And then this guy's still like, let me help you one last time, Ricky. Like, what?

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Somehow he is speaking.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

Yeah, it's like, bro, what? It's just like, but again, opera, it's metaphorical. Uh fucking Sure. Uh I loved that one. I loved both the jaw uppercut and the one that and the pneumatic crush, but I'm just gonna count that as one. Uh and then I really liked it when uh there's this fucking uh and please forgive me for saying this, uh I say it with all respect. A character I can only describe as a murder twink. Sure. Yeah, if you if you've ever watched anime, you know exactly what I'm talking about. This sort of effeminate, uh refined, delicate, very graceful, uh sort of fashionable person who very much is read as sort of you know uh a little homoerotic and just like has some crazy unorthodox way of killing you, like fucking shooting you full of poison needles or fucking like jabbing your pressure points, like always. Yeah, hit his death spot. Hit his death spot, and then Ricky literally flexed so hard he could not die. He flexes, he outflexes death. He outflexes death, which is pretty badass.

SPEAKER_00 56:19

But I was wondering if Ricky was gonna squirt after he got that the awkward that I was like, I see you're squirting.

SPEAKER_01 56:27

You bet you bested my technique with your squirt.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

Uh but yeah, when uh what happened to murder twink?

SPEAKER_01 56:35

I forget like what his he got his legs torn off and then he got his arms folded like a bow. That was a pretty fun way to go. That was a pretty fun way to go. Like a fun way to go? Yeah, like he fucked up Ricky a couple of times, and he fucked up Ricky and he skinned Ricky's bro alive.

SPEAKER_00 56:54

Yeah, that's uncool. That's I would be mad if somebody skinned you alive, bro.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

Yeah, bro. Like fucking I hope you Ricky O them.

SPEAKER_00 57:01

Like fucking, you know, hit hit the gym a little and fucking spend one night shadow boxing and then it's off to the races.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

That's how it happened in Ricky O. He learned how to do kung fu in one single night. Like it fucking ruled. Like his uncle literally. It couldn't, it might not even be his uncle for all we know. It might just be a fucking lunatic.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

It's the neighbor.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

Yeah, it just fucking teaches him how to kill people. Yeah. Uh but those are my top three. What are yours?

SPEAKER_00 57:26

Uh, I mean, I gotta give love to the meat grinder. Uh yeah. Because it's one of those one of those the scene uh few scenes of the film where there's like one big super obvious like prop that's gonna get used in that scene.

SPEAKER_01 57:39

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

That's so video gamey, but like here's the environmental hazard. Yeah, you can see the quick time event, like mash A to feed the warden into the giant meat grinder. Yeah, fucking God of War style. Yeah. Um, number two's gotta be Oscar's death, where um disembowels Oscar and is like, bro, are you good? And Oscar's like, die with me, Ricky, and he like pulls out his own intestines and then turn ties them around Ricky's neck and is trying to choke him out.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

And then Ricky fucking um X-ray punches him.

SPEAKER_00 58:11

Yes, shout out to him.

SPEAKER_01 58:12

Which is actually actually pretty fucking cool. Like he punches him, and you see this just uh fucking X-ray of Oscar's skull exploding. By the way, just a quick mention if you watch the subtitle version, which we didn't, uh the characters all have names like Ah he ahigh and fucking uh Mad Dragon and Wildcat. We watched the dubbed version.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

Uh the dub is not very good.

SPEAKER_01 58:41

Very curious accents, very curious voices, and all these hardened Hong Kong criminals are named Oscar and Andrew and Samuel and uh Alan. Jedediah Tarzan? Yeah. Rogan. Uh the murder twink is named Rogan. Uh alright, what's your last third one?

SPEAKER_00 59:02

Probably when he um kills, I forget the guy's name, but his first punch through a human chest in the shower.

SPEAKER_01 59:08

Yeah, yeah. This dude really like this enormous man comes up to him and he fucking just decks him right through his chest.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Just ices him. Yeah, that's the first real demonstration of like Ricky's power.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

Yeah, at that point it just it gets weirder. Like he just keeps fucking exploding people.

SPEAKER_00 59:23

Uh-huh. What if like he didn't actually mean to do that? It was like a curse. Like, he couldn't throw a soft punch.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

He can't get well, that's why that's why he probably tries to chill all the time.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:35

But that said, he does not try super hard to keep his impulses in check.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

Like, no, he's got a huge body count by the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

Yeah, yeah, no, like, and he's pretty eager to do it. Like, he doesn't hesitate a lot. Not in the slightest, not in the slightest, but it does rule. Uh fucking. Yeah, I I don't know how much else I can say about this. Like, Ricky O is not really high on nuance. No, no. And that's not the point. It's really meant to be absorbed, to stew in it, to like sort of experience it, yeah, to wallow and sort of just sort of appreciate the theater of it. Uh, and in that respect, this is a movie that like really does have kind of an uh a cult status online. Like this, like having seen this movie was considered like a feat at one point. It was it was hard to do. And in fact, I had to sign up for the Criterion channel to fucking watch this movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:29

Yeah, I watched it on like uh some Russian website that it didn't give me any viruses. I ran like two system scans. Um so no viruses, at least the like Bit Defender caught. But I have a Mac, so like the few fewer viruses for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

What if like Putin had access to your laptop and but he saw you were watching Ricky O and he's like, mmm, I do like that movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:49

I'll I'll let his Putin talk like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:51

I'll let him that's just how he sounds when he's like I do like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

You should subscribe to Criterion channel, though.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:59

And then I you should subscribe to Criterion. He calls you up. Well, this is Vladimir Putin. Big fan, big fan.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

You should be paying for these pictures.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:08

You should be paying for these. I'm gonna let you off with a warning this time, because I love this movie. It's fucking Bill Clinton. Well, this is Bill Clinton. You wouldn't steal another country, would you, Will? Piracy is theft. Don't you know Hollywood is it's hard up.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

We gotta pay for these Bilderberg parties somehow.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:28

Will we get up to some wild shit at these parties? There's an owl statue. You hear about the owl statue? You ever been to the Bohemian Grove? Will got really big trees there. Just slather yourself and honey and just put this glass on. Oh no. Ignore the chant.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:47

It's just it's just background music.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

Ignore the chant, that's just that's just a little Arkansas. Welcome. Will you ever been to Stonehenge?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:58

You're about to behold a mighty ritual. Will you know what a solstice is? You ever uh explain the mysteries of the druids?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:09

You ever wonder what it means to truly worship the earth will? Dude, I love this. I love druid Dilin.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

Wiccan Dilin.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

Wiccan Bill Wiccan? I'd like to sell you a crystal will. I got this tome with me. I got this tome with me. I'll sell it to you for 15 bucks, please. I gotta buy a grilled cheese. Will, I'm gonna level with you. I was at a fish concert earlier. I did a lot of nitrous will. Let me tell you, I was president. I've done a lot of nitrous. I'm talking about I did a lot of nitrous well.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

What do you think I kept in that resolute desk? It's just empty whippets. I used to call that the NOS.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:58

The Noss dispenser. Vin Diesel got the idea from me. It's crazy they used that shit in cars. I invited him down to Bohemian Grove. Of course, he outran me. He covered himself in olive oil.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

And yeah, Vin Diesel showing up at the Bohemian Grove is in a tank top.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

He's in a nice white shut mask, but he's still in his fucking tank top. Yep. It's so obviously him, but he's I'm in disguise. I'm going undercover.

unknown 1:03:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:32

I gotta stop Bill Wicken.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

Somehow drift racing is involved.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:38

He's gonna drift race, Bill Wicken. Oh no, I ran out of NOS because I was doing I was huffing too much of it in the parking lot at the fish concert. That was no regrets, though. I had a great time. The top top 20 concerts for sure. You ever been to the sphere in Las Vegas? You know, Penn and Teller. You know, Penn and Teller, one of them doesn't talk. You know, you know, Siegfried Roy. Siegfried Roy.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:10

I was the lion.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:11

It was surprise wide shut shit. That's why we don't do magic at these anymore. We we only worship the earth. Well we after that I'm like, oh no more. I can't be a lion again.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:25

That's the last time I was a shape changer.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:27

Do you remember the shining, that bit where the guy in the dog suit was giving that guy a beech? I was both of those guys. I was both of those guys. Bet you didn't know that. Me and old Manly Stanley.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:46

And you've never seen me and Stanley Kubrick in the same room, have you?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:49

Have you? Wait, is he dead? Allegedly. Allegedly. But I know we buried him at Bohemian Grove. We've been trying to resurrect him. He needs a new vessel. That's where you come in, my friend. That's where you are you really willing to let the world go without the shining two?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:14

That's the shining two.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:16

The fucking okay, the shining two. Uh fucking Chris Pratt as as Jack.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:25

Uh adult Danny is played by uh we're race swapping him.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:33

And he's played by Denzel.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:35

I like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:36

Uh Wendy is uh uh Scarlett Johansson. Sure. And she's uh and the dog is played by The Rock.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

Okay, and then isn't there like a kid in the mix? Oh no, that's Danny. Oh, there's there's the twins.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:54

There's creepy twins. Yeah, the creepy twins and there's the uh they're both played by J No no 'cause Jonah Hill. I only want like heavy Jonah Hill for that role. Like heavy sarcastic Jonah Hill.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:05

Like kind of edgy, like mean Jonah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:07

Yeah, mean Jonah. Like he's on a different quest right now, and we're just we're gonna respect that. So instead, I'll say twins, but they're both played by Shimulu. Okay. Oh. And they're sarcastic, and like they're they're trying out, like they're trying material out on you. And then Taika White as the groundskeeper. As the fucking groundskeeper. Are you using the shining? Just give it a chance.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:35

He gets murdered with a didgeridoo.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:38

Oh, come on. Exploiting the ancient rivalry between Australia and New Zealand. Oh shit, yeah. I didn't even mean it that way. My bad, Australia and New Zealand. Diplomatic incident. Diplomatic incidents and movie talk, and that's all we get out of this fucking podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:56

Well, you know, the wheels of history keep turning.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:59

Do you have anything else to add? Because I feel like I feel like I've fucking stuck my head in a trough right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:05

Like What's the trough full of?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:08

It's it's it's mostly water, but not entirely water. Like there's there's some horse spit in there. There's like a dead a dead something. Could be a lizard, could be a hairless rat.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:19

Hmm. Yeah, what's the worst kind of critter to find in your uh in your trough?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:25

Probably something still alive, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:27

Probably something ruling out something that's alive.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:29

Oh, uh something big and hairy that gets waterlogged, like a possum or a raccoon.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:35

Uh like a like a chimpanzee. One of those famous old old western chimpanzees. It's wearing a Stetson chaps, little chaps.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:45

It runs a nearby saloon.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:48

It got too drunk at the saloon and passed out and drowned the stable horse drop. Sheriff Monkey.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:55

No, I'm sorry, because chimps aren't monkeys. Sheriff Chim. Sheriff Chimchim. Sometimes you just hear like shrieky, like monkey shrieks and gunfire. Like the entire like it's just an episodic show. And like every episode, uh Sheriff Chimchim is fucking like barely barely moves. And then at the end, like he gets into the final duel. And when the bad guy says, draw, Sheriff Chimchin, like gets spooked and fucking rushes him and like rips his face off and like bashes him to death with his inhuman strength. And it's just like, ah! It's just horrifying. And the town and the townsfolk are all like, get him and Sheriff Chimchim. Like the bad guy's just screaming in agony and just, oh, it's horrible.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

That's prestige television.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:43

That's that fucking get Kevin Costner on the phone. Tell him I've got a project.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:48

That's about all I got for story of Ricky.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

Um apologies. We were we we got a little top heavy in this episode, fucking talking about our favorite Craigs. Uh Will, would you like to see us out with some fucking uh housekeeping?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:05

Yes, but should we discuss what we are watching? Oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:09

Um Do you want to watch some cop slop?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:12

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:12

Do you want to watch The Gauntlet starring Clint Eastwood?

unknown 1:09:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:19

We have not done a Clint Eastwood yet. Okay. Alright, The Gauntlet starring Clint Eastwood from 1970 fuck. Uh 1970 fuck. That was that was a good year. That was a good year. That's the time I discovered Gaia. That's when I communed with the Deku tree. I know you think that's from Zelda, but no, that really happened to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:43

I consumed the seed of the Earth Mother. Her wisdom courses through me. Behold, I wear a crown of antlers.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:50

Don't tell Hillary. She's gonna make me bomb Kosovo again. She said it was the only way to balance the scales. She said there is a time for sowing and a time for reaping. I don't know what that means.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:08

I just know I don't want to hear her say it again.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

I don't want to hear her say it again, to be honest. I'm really all about commuting with the tree. Alright, I'm sorry. I can't keep going back down to Druid Bill Clinton. Uh fucking, fucking, so we're gonna watch the gauntlet or in 1975. Yep. And would now do you want to see us out?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:30

Yeah. Uh Slop Culture is a podcast hosted by Sam Sykes, that's him, and Will Palmer, that's me. Uh please give us a five-star review on whatever platform you heard us on. That's five stars out of five, ideally. Nice comments are cool too. I mean comments are cool, but we'd love it if they were nice. Uh our cover art is by Andrew Sides, and our intro music is by Joe Roy. And you can get in touch with the podcast at Slopculturepodcast at gmail.com. And you can find me on social media at palmskis or will underscore palmskis uh pretty much everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:59

And you can find me on social media at Sam Sykeswears Everywhere. This has been Slop Culture, the podcast, the happy hour podcast. The happy hour podcast where we strive to see the beauty and stupidity and the joy of the Earth Mother. And until we see you next time with The Gauntlet, starring Clint Eastwood.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:20

Study Sloppy, y'all.